24 August 1942, Huntingdon, Tennessee, USA. Mann was a rockabilly artist who recorded his only two chart singles for the Phillips International label, owned by Sam Phillips, proprietor of the legendary Sun Records. Mann was a singer and pianist whose group, the Kool Kats, was based in Jackson, Tennessee, when they recorded their first tracks for the small Jaxon label, owned
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Robert Glynn Luman, 15 April 1937, Blackjack, near Nacogdoches, Texas, USA, d. 27 December 1978, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Lumans father, Joe, a school caretaker, bus driver and gifted musician, taught his son country music, but Lumans first love was baseball, which he played on a semi-professional basis until 1959. He was influenced by seeing Elvis Presley in c
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Albert Burgess, 28 May 1931, Newport, Arkansas, USA. As a child Burgess earned the name Sonny as a result of his father also being called Albert. Inspired by the Grand Ole Opry show transmitted over WSMs airwaves, he set about learning to play a catalogue-purchased guitar. He joined his first country band while at high school, eventually moving from the rol
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Jiles Perry Richardson, 24 October 1930, Sabine Pass, Texas, USA, d. 3 February 1959, USA. After working as a disc jockey in Beaumont, Richardson won a recording contract with Mercury Records, releasing two unsuccessful singles in 1957. The following year, under his radio moniker The Big Bopper, he recorded the ebullient Chantilly Lace, a rock n
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5 October 1933, Pocahontas, Arkansas, USA. One of the unsung members of the early Sun Records roster, Billy Lee Rileys recordings for the label remain among the most uninhibited rock n roll sides to be released during the mid- to late 50s.Of Irish-Indian parentage, Riley was raised in rural Arkansas and by the age of 10 was working i
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10 May 1935, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, d. 2 January 1980, Los Angeles, California, USA. Williams recorded a handful of raucous rock n roll songs for Specialty Records that later influenced, among others, John Lennon. Williams learned to play the piano while in New Orleans, and moved to Oakland, California, with his family while in his teens. There he joined a
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Giovanni Dominico Scafone Jnr., 24 January 1936, Windsor, Ontario, Canada. This distinctive, deep-voiced rock n roll and ballad singer-songwriter moved to Detroit at the age of 10, and began performing regularly with his sister Linda on the WEXL radio station. After changing his name to Jack Scott, he formed the C&W outfit Southern Drifters in 1954. Playing a
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A brother and sister rockabilly act, Larry Collins (4 October 1944, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA) and Lorrie Collins (b. Lawrencine Collins, 7 May 1942, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, USA) recorded numerous singles for Columbia Records in the 50s and early 60s that are revered by fans and collectors of early rock n roll but never dented the charts. The duo gained what little recog
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28 March 1934, Memphis, Tennessee, USA, d. 1 August 1964, Clear Lake, California, USA. Having attended the same high school as Elvis Presley, Johnny moved into the rockabilly genre by forming a trio with his brother Dorsey Burnette on string bass and schoolfriend Paul Burlison (b. 4 February 1929, Brownsville, Tennessee, USA, d. 27 September 2003, Horn Lake, Mississippi, US
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Claiborne Joseph Cheramie, 8 September 1938, Harvey, Louisiana, USA. Clay was a rockabilly singer and guitarist who recorded two singles in the late 50s and entered a 30-year period of obscurity before being rediscovered by fans of that music. Clay fronted the C.J. Cheramie Trio in Louisiana in the early 50s, playing the Louisiana Hayride in 1955 on a bill with Elvis Presley
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John Lewis Carrell, 23 October 1937, Cleburne, Texas, USA, d. 18 February 1995, Godley, Texas, USA. Carroll was brought up on a farm near Fort Worth, Texas, though farming held no attraction for him. By the age of 10 he was singing country music and Carroll was an early performer of rockabilly. He flew to Nashville in 1956 and recorded Crazy Crazy Lovin,
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Edward James Bond, 1 July 1933, Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Bond first sang on local Memphis radio and television in 1955 and released his first single, Double Duty Lovin/Talking Off The Wall, on Ekko that year. He worked with Elvis Presley and Johnny Horton on Shreveports Louisiana Hayride and in 1957/8, he recorded six tracks in Memphis for
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